Attacking Gun Owners in Service of Fantasies

The Liberal Party under Trudeau is addicted to fantasy as a utopian alternative to reality. On his disastrous India visit Trudeau had a choice between the realities of the world’s largest democracy or embrace the fantasies of Bollywood. Even after his arrival he chose Bollywood as a more fun version of India and devil take the serious people who run the country. Trudeau believes that “budgets balance themselves” so his government has no qualms about running up tens of billions in deficits with no plan to stop and no plan to ever pay the debt and its ever-rising interest costs.

Their war on inanimate objects (guns) is no different. Their ideological track record on this is consistent. Allan Rock Minister of Justice (1994) supported a total gun ban with only police and soldiers allowed firearms. Liberal Senator Sharon Carstairs (1994) supported C68 as a first step necessary to begin the social re-engineering of Canada. Lloyd Axworthy (1998) Liberal Foreign Affairs Minister intended Canada to be the first unarmed country in the world. He considered disarming the public as part of a new humanitarian social agenda. Liberal Minister of Justice Anne McLellan (1999) stated that it had been a long standing Liberal policy to discourage the use of personal defense weapons. This is part of their utopian vision of a passive, obedient nation with an unarmed and subservient people. The belief that Canadians have no core identity and are a blank slate for their social engineering supports their belief in the coming utopia.

Which brings us to the Liberals latest gun control agenda, to ban all semi-automatic weapons and all handguns. This effort is now being pursued with a public-opinion poll to” determine” what Canadians want. The poll is introduced with an impossibility caused by reality colliding with official rhetoric. The Liberals claim the “online engagement” will lead to “an examination of a ban on handguns and assault weapons in Canada, while not impeding the lawful use of firearms by Canadians”. Point of interest – how stupid are Canadians? How is it possible to ban handguns and semi-automatics and not impede their lawful use? Answer – if they can change the law to redefine lawful use then lawful use means anything they want it to mean. Or did you assume there was some sort of hunting/ recreational exception in there?

A Look at the Questions

Should more be done to limit access to handguns? 

The question assumes that limiting handguns will somehow impact violent crime. Also unstated is the inference that it is legal handguns we are talking about (illegal handguns are already 100% banned, access is illegal, which means 100% limited access). More limited access would impact hundreds of thousands of Canadian gun owners and a wide variety of shooting sports. 

The US Department of Justice has used the following description: “in general, assault weapons are semiautomatic firearms with a large magazine of ammunition that were designed and configured for rapid fire.” (This definition is from the American Assault Weapon Ban which proved entirely useless as a crime fighting tool and was abandoned)

Should more be done to limit access to assault weapons?

Assault weapon is a very controversial term. Originally it was a military definition for a carbine size rifle shooting an intermediate power cartridge and capable of automatic or semi-automatic fire. The term has since been adopted by anti-gun groups to mean all semi-automatic rifles.  The definition used in the survey would include all semi-automatic firearms since a larger magazine can be added to any gun and a semi-automatic design always included the possibility for rapid fire. Using the term in a way that implies some sort of “black rifle” is idiot bait.

Where should we focus efforts to limit handguns?  

• Legally-owned handguns – An invitation to punish millions of law-abiding citizens for the actions of a few criminals. No mention of how this is supposed to reduce crime.
• Illicit handguns – more idiot bait, they are already illegal are we going to make them double illegal?
• Both legally-owned handguns and illicit handguns – sounds like a total gun ban, however since illicit guns are already illegal it’s another invitation to fight violent crime by restricting the law-abiding.
• Neither legally-owned handguns nor illicit handguns – Is this question written by a robot? All handguns are eliminated from the choice so how does one limit the non-existent?

Where do you believe efforts to limit assault weapons should be focused? (what about not limiting them?)

• Legally-owned firearms – another invitation to punish the law-abiding for the actions of criminals.
• Illicit firearms – already illegal
• Both legally-owned firearms and illicit firearms – a restatement of the attack on the law-abiding since the illicit are already illegal and totally banned.
• Neither legally-owned firearms nor illicit firearms – another question from an idiot – see above.

With respect to limiting handguns, assault weapons, and other firearms in the illicit market, in which of the following areas do you think efforts (more laws!) should be focused?

• Theft from businesses and individuals – already illegal.
• Straw purchasing (i.e., a legal purchase that is then diverted to the illicit market) – already illegal.
• Smuggling – already illegal, in a big country with open borders ending firearms smuggling is a logistical impossibility and the government knows it. It remains in the discussion because acknowledging the realities would undercut the restrict the law-abiding to prevent theft argument for gun bans.

This is followed by seven demographic questions to allow the Liberals to calculate likely votes gained and lost with each option. 

This political exercise is a blatant attack on gun owners in the form of a “push poll”. A push poll is one where the pollster has already made up their mind and is intentionally designing a poll to give them the desired statistics to justify their actions. It follows the Liberals pattern of denying reality when faced with facts. Throughout the survey it is implied that law-abiding gun owners are a source of violent crime. Cracking down where the problem isn’t is not a solution it’s a diversion. The survey states that “The Government of Canada has committed to get handguns and assault rifles off our streets.” It is illegal to carry a gun in Canada so this “commitment” eliminates any need to further restrict law-abiding firearms owners since their guns are not on the street to begin with. Again, we see the rejection of facts and the pursuit of fantasy in service of an ideological utopia.

We can also note the one-way street that Liberals present to gun owners, it’s either the dismal status quo where a tradition part of Canada’s heritage is deemed illegal or even more restrictions.

The possibility that arms in the hands of the law-abiding would have an intimidating effect on criminals and reduce crime is not even considered. This exposes the lie that “The Prime Minister has publicly committed to examining all options relating to a handgun ban.” This controversial gun ban proposal is doubtless also being proposed as a distraction from the seemingly endless Liberal scandals and incompetence. 

Given close to a half a century of incremental gun restrictions, the targeting of some gun owners is a not so subtle insult to hunters and other gun owners who don’t happen to own handguns or semi-automatics. Do they really think the gun community is so stupid that they will not recognize this as a divide and conquer move that also sets the stage for more restrictions in the future? The talking point that it is “not political” since the police will classify which guns are banned is more idiot bait. Yes, the police are “not political” however, the head of the RCMP and other forces are political appointees and will follow the priorities of their political masters. 

One thing is clear, the Liberal fantasy that gun owners are too stupid, too politically inert, too focused on their own little bit, too disorganized and too naive to recognize what is happening is now being subjected to the test.